2017-02-14

If you want to keep a fish with stunning colors, Chocolate Lyretail killifish should be your ideal choice. Even though chocolate color is dominant, you will get orange and red colors on their body to complement it. As it goes with the other varieties of killifish, the male Chocolate Lyretail killifish will bear these colors.

As the name suggests, the fish will have a lyre tail with spiking dorsal fins. The anal fin is also pointed and all the colors will be looking very attractive on the background of chocolate color. The size of a grown-up fish is usually small (about 2-3 inches) like any other killifish.

By Alexander Prokoshe (CC)

Chocolate Lyretail killifish can easily adapt to a number of conditions of water and this quality makes them a good choice for the beginners as well as the experienced fish-keepers. Further, they can get along with other species of fish very easily because they are peaceful by nature.

Just like most of other killifish varieties, Chocolate Lyretail killifish can be found in shallow waters in the wild. You should remember this origin when you set up your aquarium. You should provide a long but shallow aquarium with a lot of decorative items like driftwood, rocks and gravel. You should also provide floating plants so that the fish will have enough places to hide.

The size of the aquarium should be reasonably big. There should be enough area for the fish to swim around. If you over-populate your aquarium with many varieties of fish, Chocolate Lyretail killifish will get stressed and they will look inactive with dull colors.

You should also cover your aquarium properly so that they will not get any opportunity to jump out. Like any other killifish, they are fond of jumping and they cannot live out of water for a long time.

They are non-annual killifish meaning their life cycle is not limited to one year. So they prefer to stay in the permanent bodies of water in the nature. In your aquarium also, you should not keep currents in the water which will disturb their swimming activity.

They are comfortable in the subdued light so you should see that there is no direct sunlight hitting the aquarium continuously.

The breeding process for Chocolate Lyretail killifish is very easy. The only precaution you should take about their breeding is you should arrange them in the proportion of at least two to three females against one male.

They are continuous breeders and they will lay their eggs on the leaves of a plant or even on the mops.

Sometimes the experienced fish-keepers increase the temperature of the aquarium which will act as a trigger for spawning. After spawning, you need not remove the eggs out of your main aquarium. The eggs will take about a month to hatch.

As the fry come out, you should shift them to another aquarium. This new aquarium can be small and it need not have dense plants. The newly born fish should be fed with live brine shrimp from day one and you should look after them every day. You should clean the tank water daily and keep the levels of toxic elements under control.

As the fry grow, you will be able to easily identify between males and females because of their colors. The females will not have pointed fins but they will have rounded fins.

Chocolate Lyretail killifish will not live longer after spawning. Within about a couple of months after spawning, they will die.

If you use dark substrate, the bright and colorful Chocolate Lyretail killifish will shine very well. If you feed them with live food frequently, their happy and graceful swimming and jumping will keep your aquarium lively all the time.

By Chintamani Abhyankar
Chintamani Abhyankar is a goldfish enthusiast and has been raising and breeding goldfish for many years. He is an expert on their care and an advocate for raising healthy goldfish the natural way.
Article Source: EzineArticles